PAgent’s Progress

I went for a ride this morning. It was a beautiful day, early enough that it wasn’t too hot yet. I had come off the bike path, and was riding in a bike lane in the street, and I saw a cyclist ahead of me. He was taking it easy, and going pretty slow. I got the impression he was finishing up a longer ride.

In fact, he was going slowly enough that I was catching up to him. As we neared a stoplight, I think he heard my freewheel, because he turned and saw me gaining on him. He kicked it up a bit after that so I didn’t catch him.

I did end up following him for a mile or two. He was an older guy, my age or a few years older. As I said, he was taking it easy, and I noticed that he would occasionally drop his hand off the handlebar and shake it, make a fist a couple of times, and put it back on the handlebar. I knew exactly what he was feeling- his fingers were tingling and going numb from the pressure of the handlebar on his palm. It becomes so annoying you sit up on the saddle and try to shake the feeling back into them. I hated that.

If I had caught him, I would have said “Your hands don’t have to hurt. You can ride a bike without finger numbness, a sore butt, a bad back, and a stiff neck. Get a recumbent bike.” But it probably wouldn’t have done any good.

Most cyclists are remarkably resistant to even the idea of switching to a recumbent. I say “You can ride pain-free.” They say “Cycling doesn’t hurt me! I don’t need a recumbent!” It’s denial. Of course upright cycling hurts. Even the great Lance Armstrong, in his book It’s Not About The Bike describes learning to tolerate the pain that comes from sitting on a narrow hard saddle for hours at a time. It hurts. You can get used to it, you can tolerate it. But it still hurts. And it doesn’t have to.

I’ve tried to explain to friends how switching to a recumbent has reignited the joy I used to feel when I cycled. How it makes me feel like a kid again, sliding to a stop with one foot on the ground. How good it feels to go on a long ride, and the only pain I feel is in the leg muscles I worked. How much safer it feels to NOT lead with your head in traffic. But to most people recumbents are ‘goofy’ and ’silly’. They’re funny-looking bikes that are only ridden by fat old men and cripples. Yes, I ride a ‘bent because I couldn’t tolerate the pain. But now I wish I had started earlier, so I could have enjoyed my riding so much more.

Well, it doesn’t really matter. I’m seeing more and more recumbents on the road. We wave as we pass each other on the bike path. More and more people are learning our secret – that recumbent bicycles can be fast, and fun, and comfortable. We’ll let the rest of you catch up.

I was getting ready for work yesterday. The kids were already awake, and bouncing around. I went into the kitchen, and noticed my bottle of Sriracha pepper sauce was on the kitchen counter. Now, nobody in the house but me touches the stuff. And I sure didn’t take it out of the fridge. I picked it up, and it was at room temperature, so it had been out for a while.

My wife came into the kitchen, and I asked her if she knew anything about it. She didn’t, but she noticed two paper cups in the garbage, with chocolate milk residue in them. Aha.

We called the kids into the kitchen, and began the interrogation. The girl confessed that they had made chocolate milk. I noticed the syrup wasn’t in the fridge either, and asked where it was. “The family room” my son said, and ran off to get it. They had made the chocolate milk on the floor of the family room.

Needless to say, I was in a pretty foul mood when I went off to work. The idea that my kids would get up before me so they could sneak glasses of chocolate milk, kind of ticked me off.

Then my wife called me at work. She had noticed that, even though the last game we had played on the GameCube was Animal Crossing, this morning the console had Super Smash Brothers in it. Curiouser and curiouser. She promised to follow up with the kids.

She called me late in the day. “I wanted to let you know what I found out, so you wouldn’t be surprised when you came home.” Uh-oh.

It turns out my kids, age 9 and 6, have been setting an alarm clock, getting up at 2:00 am, and partying. They would make chocolate milk, watch TV, and play video games. But better than that, they have also been going outside and playing in the neighborhood. Yes, sometime around 3:00 am, my kids would go running around the neighborhood, in their pj’s and bare feet, while my wife and I slept, utterly clueless.

‘Angry’ is an understatement. They’ve been given some consequences, and Mrs. Agent and I have stressed with our daughter exactly why this was a stupid idea. In the past we have often purposefully shielded her from tales of abduction, child abuse and the like, because of her vivid imagination. No more. We want to make sure she understands exactly how much danger she put herself and her little brother in. We need to try to make her understand that our rules are not challenges to her inventiveness, but guidelines for her safety.

I’m glad I started taking an anti-depressant.